mast climbing a smaller keelboat

[peterchech]

I recently purchased a Hunter 25. It has a schoal draft (2'11") fixed keel, with about 2000# of ballast, and a total displacement of 4000#. I climbed the mast while in the slip to fix a jammed halyard last week. From my perspective the boat barely heeled at all. However I had three friends standing on deck, and one holding a spare halyard on the dock. I unjammed the block, and got down from the very top within 10 seconds.

Well after some hindsight, I think this was kind of a stupid thing to do without knowing much about keelboats. I now want to re-climb and replace the masthead light. This will require much more time than 10 seconds, and I may not have as many crew below.

My question is, did I just get lucky that the boat didn't heel way over and dump me over onto my neighbor's boat? Or is this a large enough keel boat that climbing the mast is safe? I weigh 180#...

If the boat starts heeling, will it develop more righting moment or less as it heels more? Is there a way to tie it up to minimize the risk of a heavy heel?

Thanks for any opinions or similar experiences

[tommays]

I am sure its a good bit stiffer than say a J24 which can be knocked down by someone your size on top of the mast BUT you could defiantly make the boat heel pretty good if you moved around to aggressively

[FDR14127]

Well the righting moment of even a J24 are mighty impressive. I once witnessed while waiting for the wind to fill in on the Youngstown Level Regatta 4 crew members haul down the masthead on a J24 whereupon one member held on to the top while the others let go. The boat came up with alacrity and he was launched seriously into space. There was a deafening silence among the 200 or so boats around the line and the realization collectively that that was a dumb fsking stunt.

[peterchech]

Wow that's a pretty interesting story. And I always thought j24's had a reputation for minimal ballast.

So you're saying that it took 4 people to keep that mast down, and when three of them let go that guy launched into the water? Pretty ballsy way to have fun

[overbored]

You are good. think of it this way. when sailing, the sails are putting hundreds of pounds of side load force on the mast and the boat stays up and does not capsize so with 180 lbs. of load straight down on the mast it is not going to go over very far at all. if you want to see just how much it takes then try to pull it over by standing on the dock and pulling it over with a haylard. you will not get it over more the about 5 degrees. I use to go up my Rhodes 19 mast all the time and it was only 1300 lbs. with the keel